| Author | Message | ||
     Iman501 |
so i've been wanting a laptop for some time now, and have been eying the macbooks. i spent about an hour at best buy the other day fooling around on the ones they had there and talking to the sales guy (who actually was very helpful and seemed to know a lot about what he was showing me!) he showed me the simple macbook, and then the pro's. i know that the pro's have the sd card reader, and fire wire, and such that the normal macbook lacks, but beside trivial things like those, and memory, whats the big difference between the non-pro, and Pro? its only about a $200 difference between them (for the base model of the Pro). I'm mostly looking at just Internet usage, movies, music, photo's, and school stuff (papers, sideshows, video's, presentations, etc.) do you guys think its really worth me spending the extra $200ish to step up to the pro, or just stick with the plain macbook? ps. my dad was saying something about ordering a macbook from apple.com and getting a free itouch?....anybody ever hear about that? PPS. dont turn this into a PC VS Mac thread......."Cough Cough....froggy!...." | ||
| Froggy |
The pros have better specs on them and more features. The non-pro's of course are cheaper. Go with the best that you can afford. Typically I would skimp on RAM and upgrade it myself later cheap, but I know Apple is making that more and more difficult. I will say though, you can get a really nice Win7 laptop for the price of a cheap Macbook  | ||
| Froggy |
Oh, and I am pretty sure the Macworld or whatever its called is right around the corner and they will reveal all the new models that make the current stuff look more overpriced and inferior than usual. | ||
| Danger_dave |
The cheapie is just fine for that task list. If you plan on transporting it by motorcycle, the pro is in a more robust box. | ||
| Danger_dave |
On a related note: SEATTLE - Apple has surpassed Microsoft as the largest technology company in the world by market capitalisation. Apple's move comes as the company's iPhone, and now its iPad tablet computer, take on more of the personal computing tasks once handled by computers running Microsoft programs. Market cap is the dollar value of a company's outstanding shares. During afternoon trading yesterday, Apple's shares rose to US$248.47, pushing its market cap up to about US$226 billion. Microsoft's stock slipped to US$25.49, for market cap of about US$223 billion. The only US business with a higher market value is Exxon Mobile Corp. The oil company's market cap is about US$281 billion. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article. cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10647723 | ||
| Ridenusa4l |
i have a pro...its for if you have the 200$ then spend it, it is money well spent...IMHO Jake P.S.- once you go mac you never go back!   Jake | ||
| Rex |
Get a macbook pro. and a ipad, and an Iphone. | ||
| Court |
>>>Get a macbook pro. and a ipad, and an Iphone. I got hooked . . . and once you have your "Life" interconnected . . well, it's addictive. I don't . . . standing alone . . .like any individual component the "best" but it's a great system and I realize the shortcomings are on my end from years, and 8 laptops, of being a PC user. I get a kick out of one of my "metrics" . . . . and admit it has no basis in fact . . . but when I walk into the libraries at Columbia, Butler, Avery, Low, Pulitzer, Buell, Business or Law School . . and look around . . . I'd say it's about an 80% Mac to 20% PC mix . . . maybe 90/10. When folks told me that the Mac was a toy . . . well the old "you believe little you hear and half of what you see" kinda kicked in. | ||
| Aeholton |
I bought my regular Macbook from Apple and spent the extra $$ doubling memory. If you plan on playing any games that require a decent video card go with the Pro. | ||
| Xl1200r |
I don't do anything more than you, I opted for a pro for the reason that I keep my computers for a long time (~5 years), and the pro is more expandable as far as memory is than the regular ones. I'm going off memory here but I think the pros can handle 8gb of ram while the regulars will only do 4. Yeah, way more than anyone needs, but last computer was a hot rod when it was new with 512k of ram, and the standard now is twice that, at least. | ||
| Buell2001b |
apple is for girls that like their laptop to match their shoes | ||
| Drkside79 |
If you can afford it get the pro. If not the macbook will be just fine. I had a G4 that just died after years of enjoyment. } | ||
| Court |
>>>>apple is for girls that like their laptop to match their shoes That's true. I had a meeting across the street from a modeling shoot the other day in Chelsea Market. You are correct.  By the way . . . . I notice that all of them smoke and have matching cigarette cases. Is at across the street with a 400mm lens and that was the one thing I noticed. People are strange. | ||
| Spike |
The regular Macbook will work just fine, but for ~$200 more I'd get the MacBook Pro. You're already spending Apple money, so the price/performance argument is out the window. The faster hardware on the Macbook Pro is worth it if you do anything graphical, but the aluminum body and the higher resale will pay off in years to come. The free iPod is for college students and staff: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/campaigns/back_to _school | ||
| Greg_e |
Trivial? Firewire and PC card slots are not trivial unless all you intend to do is "fool" around with this thing. If writing papers and surfing the web are all you want to do, then the lower model Macs would be fine. Yes they will do more than just that, but when you get up into "real" HD video editing or photo editing you really should have a Pro. (iMovie and iPhoto are not "real" to me) Also, you can walk into the apple store with your school ID and get a discount (small but still there), you can preview the prices by going to the Apple website store, clicking on the educational link and typing in the zip code for your school and selecting it, then shopping. Lately the discounts have not been as good as in the past. The cheapest Macbook is $950 educational discount (a whole $50). And if low level writing papers and stuff is all you need, you sure can save a huge amount of money getting a similar processor and ram (or even better) for less money and run either Windows, Linux, or Unix on the thing. Open Office runs on all of them as does Firefox. Get a Toshiba with OpenSolaris pre-installed and configured and you are done. All that said, you can do pretty damn well at your local Staples, this week they had an i5 processor laptop with 4GB ram and some sort of hard drive for $600 with no rebates to fool around with, runs Win7 which is a decent OS. http://www.staples.com/Acer-AS5741-6073-15.6-Lapto p/product_863062 Will probably work fine with many Linux flavors and probably OpenSolaris when the new stable version comes out. And why do I keep mentioning OpenSolaris, because I have found the learning curve to be much smaller and gentler than other Unix type operating systems. And it's FREE. And it will hopefully run ECMread (still not tested, waiting for the next stable release). | ||
| J2blue |
The aluminum body is worth the extra cost alone. I had an older aluminum body 12 inch years ago. My most recent is the plastic body 13.3 inch model and it has a chipped edge that bugs the crap out of me, but it still works so I can't take it in for replacement. | ||
| Jonny5 |
Get the Pro - you won't be disappointed. If you ever want to import video into it you will need the Firewire. It's pretty handy not having to carry around an external SD reader too. Also the body of the Pro is SOLID. I had an iBook before my MacBook Pro and it was like a toy in comparison. -J5 | ||
| Cyclonedon |
By the way . . . . I notice that all of them smoke and have matching cigarette cases. Is at across the street with a 400mm lens and that was the one thing I noticed. People are strange. what cigarette case? all I noticed were her legs!  | ||
| Cyclonedon |
and back to the topic: buy the best computer you can afford because in 6 months it will be out-dated! I purchased a Gateway computer several years back and when the salesman was asking me what I wanted as he was going through the questions, he kept telling me that I didn't need this much computer but I purchased it anyway. About 2 to 3 months later it was Gateway's specs for their entry level pc's. | ||
| Reepicheep |
You can boot into Ubuntu Linux straight from a CD drive on a wintel box and "test drive" it to see how you like it, without changing anything on your system. Works reasonably well that way, I use it to recover snarled up systems all the time. | ||
| Doon |
I would vote for the pro as well, since the Au case is way nicer than plastic. As for waiting for WWDC, no need. They are more than likely not going to announce new MBP's there, as the MB and MBP just went through refreshes. WWDC will most likely be Iphone 4.. http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/ Is a good site to check as it lets you know where the various bits of apple gear are in product cycle. That being said we just got sales guy @ the office a new 13"MBP (base model) and it is pretty sweet. The MBP comes with 4G of ram, as compared to the MB's 2G. so the price isn't that much different... | ||
| Buell2001b |
laptops run MOREEEEE applications then apple. why do you think the government does not rely on apple,lol I was at a medical school and while 80% of the girls had apples 99% males had laptops and 1% gay males had apples | ||
| Doon |
buell2001b, comparing anything to the what the government does is silly I am not sure what you mean by apple vs laptop. As what I am typing this post on is both and Apple and a Laptop? My other laptop runs FreeBSD, and my netbook runs a version of Linux. What none of them run Is a version of Windows (Sorry Froggy, I Do have XP and 7, running in VMS ).. And calling apple a girls computer, or a computer for gay males basically just shows your ignorance... Oh and Apple must be doing something right, their market cap just surpassed Microsofts (which is what I assumed you mean when you says laptops). | ||
| Froggy |
Buell2001b, interesting statistics. I run Windows PC's due to the costs and due to the fact that I need Windows to run my applications. The macs are getting more and more tempting, but the only ones they sell that tickle my fancy cost almost as much as my 1125R. | ||
| Buell2001b |
Froggy 88% of apple users use their apple to check weather, facebook, email and time 98.5% of the time. anything other then that you woudl need windows 7 loaded on your apple,lol Microsoft kicks assssss | ||
| Froggy |
Microsoft does indeed kick ass, but where are you getting these statistics from? | ||
| Doon |
buell2001b. 88% of computer users use their computer to check their email/weather/facebook/download porn .. And on winders, play solitaire The only stuff I can't do on My Mac (and the list is getting smaller and smaller each day) are things that vendors decided to to use M$ proprietary technology (in most cases Active-X) in order to implement some sort of web gui. Other than that. we've quite successfully built a multi-million dollar business with out the help of M$ And oh be still my beating heart, did I heart. Did I hear froggy say the words mac and tempting in the same sentence. also buell2001b (there are fanbois on both sides. and most times this comes down to religious war, about which Computer / OS better). We could substitue Mac for Buell (think different) and Windows for Honda and have this exact same argument.. At least you have good taste in bikes (as opposed to computers ) | ||
| Barker |
I buy all of my Macs refirb from apple.com For me its the best deal. Most are are new, old stock. Its just like buying new, but cheaper same warranty etc. Stock the the refirb site changes day to day. Clearance/refirb site: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals /clearance I have seen a deal for students/teachers:  *Buy a qualifying Mac and iPod with Apple education pricing from May 25, 2010, through September 7, 2010, and receive an online rebate up to $199. 8GB iPod touch is second generation. Terms and conditions apply. | ||
| Froggy |
Doon, I have been looking at an Ipad, but then I remember that my 4 year old linux based Nokia N800 does everything the Ipad can, but also can play Flash content. I doubt the Ipad crashes twice a day like my Nokia, but I see no compelling reason to switch. The cost of desktop/laptop units puts them into the undesirable category. $600 last summer got my aunt a really nice HP laptop with Vista Home Prem, blue ray player, tv tuner, remote, 320gb hard drive and 4gb of ram. If I wasn't a cheap ass I would get one for myself. | ||
| Barker |
I also time my purchases with this site: http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/ Right now everything but the macbooks are due for an update. |
